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She glared at hiue with her, but Alessandro had no intention of doing any such thing

He had never registeredto plumb their hidden depths, but in this instance he could see the pattern of her life as clearly as if it had been printed in bright neon letters across her forehead

She had instilled such a strict code for herself that she was a prisoner of it He doubted she had ever had any sort of fun with that ex-boyfriend of hers, and he wondered what fun she had noith her stable job and her bright future Her head told her what she needed, but what she needed was not necessarily what she wanted

And he got the i about that conundrum for the first time in her life

Because he had rammed it down her throat

On the one hand he had done her a favour She was so uptight that she would snap in two given a slight breeze Life was not kind to the seriously uptight He was certain of that They were always the ones who ended their lives thinking about all the things they’d strenuously resisted doing

On the other hand she was visibly upset—and that was hardly a positive way for a boss to encourage his employee to start the day

‘You haven’t finished your breakfast,’ he told her, indicating her plate

She se in conversation and the reprieve frohts

‘I don’t think I’ve ever sat in front of a bigger breakfast’

‘Bigger is better—that’s the motto, I think We can stick to the buffet tomorrow’

‘I didn’t have uess I really a Nor’ She dug into her capacious handbag and extracted her tablet ‘I’ve brought along all the infore, in case you want to sit doith hih it’

Alessandro had no intention of doing any such thing, but he was relieved that she was back to nor the woman who matched the uniform of suits she alore

Even though those moed into the other li, weirdly appealing

In for the breakfast and flung his linen napkin next to his plate ‘Right’ He stood as he signed the bill ‘Let’s get going’

It was as though their very personal conversation had never happened He was all business Even without the business suit

‘Shall we get a taxi there? Do you knohether it’s a long drive out of the city centre?’

‘We won’t need a taxi’ He flicked his cell phone out of his pocket and scrolled though the nued to have my own driver for the duration of our stay here More reliable andto find a taxi e need one’

‘The limo?’

‘No’

They began strolling out to the street and she followed hirand hotel and the designer shopping centre that circled it

He looked at her, his eyes creased with auilt caused by the carbon footprint’

There he went again, she thought with a little flurry of desperation Undoing all her plans to ignore hi that h half an hour before she had beenher private life and asking personal questions

He was also in business mode She could sense that as they settled into the back of the car—a far h still sleek and impressive by most people’s standards

The hotel was forty minutes’ drive ahich made it quite a distance out of the hub of don Toronto, and he turned to her and said, with a thoughtful frown, ‘Seems a little odd to head for a hotel in the hills when you’re spending vast suree?’

Kate gave that soh some people hate cities’

‘Then why holiday in one?’

‘His wife rinned ‘That’s one of those building-block situations I was telling you about He hates cities and shopping, she loves theo so back to a conversation she wanted to forget, but at least it distracted her from the unpleasant task that lay ahead